DNP is safe to use for weight loss when customers follow recommended dosing, and reported side effects should be managed by adjusting the dose rather than by stopping the product.
Bernard Rebelo’s sentencing remarks record that when customers told him about side effects they were experiencing, he told them to disregard the symptoms and adjust the dose, despite his own online posts acknowledging DNP was dangerous. This claim is refuted by the toxicological literature: DNP has no established safe dose and no antidote (Grundlingh et al. 2011), and the sentencing judge recorded that of those who presented at hospital between 2007 and 2019 with a history of having taken DNP, 18% died (sentencing remarks, para. 6). The Food Standards Agency had already warned in 2003 that as few as three or four capsules could cause death.
Appears in
Sources
- R v Bernard Rebelo: Sentencing Remarks of the Hon. Mrs Justice Whipple DBE — Whipple J, R v Bernard Rebelo, sentencing remarks, Central Criminal Court, 11 March 2020, published by the Judiciary of England and Wales, https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/r-v-rebelo-sentencing-remarks.pdf
- 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP): A Weight Loss Agent with Significant Acute Toxicity and Risk of Death — Johann Grundlingh, Paul I. Dargan, Marwa El-Zanfaly, and David M. Wood, '2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP): A Weight Loss Agent with Significant Acute Toxicity and Risk of Death,' Journal of Medical Toxicology 7(3) (2011): 205-212. PMID 21739343. doi:10.1007/s13181-011-0162-6
- Toxicological Profile for Dinitrophenols — Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Toxicological Profile for Dinitrophenols, 2019, https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp64.pdf (see also NCBI Bookshelf edition, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK590059/)
- Food Standards Agency issues urgent advice on consumption of 'fat burner' capsules containing DNP — Food Standards Agency (UK), Food Standards Agency issues urgent advice on consumption of fat burner capsules containing DNP, press release, June 2003, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20101210124807/http://www.food.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/2003/jun/fatburnpress